[en] A 'weighted magnetic bearing' has been developed to improve the performance of rotating Lorentz-force flowmeters (RLFFs). Experiments have shown that the new bearing reduces frictional losses within a double-sided, disc-style RLFF to negligible levels. Operating such an RLFF under 'frictionless' conditions provides two major benefits. First, the steady-state velocity of the RLFF magnets matches the average velocity of the flowing liquid at low flow rates. This enables an RLFF to make accurate volumetric flow measurements without any calibration or prior knowledge of the fluid properties. Second, due to minimized frictional losses, an RLFF is able to measure low flow rates that cannot be detected when conventional, high-friction bearings are used. As a result, this paper provides a brief background on RLFFs, gives a detailed description of weighted magnetic bearings, and compares experimental RLFF data to measurements taken with a commercially available flowmeter.

[en] Here, optically pumped magnetometers (OPM) can be used in various applications, from magnetoencephalography to magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR). OPMs provide high sensitivity and have the significant advantage of non-cryogenic operation. To date, many magnetometers have been demonstrated with sensitivity close to 1 fT, but most devices are not commercialized. Most recently, QuSpin developed a model of OPM that is low cost, high sensitivity, and convenient for users, which operates in a single-beam configuration. Here we developed a theory of single-beam (or parallel two-beam) magnetometers and showed that it is possible to achieve good sensitivity beyond their usual frequency range by tuning the magnetic field. Experimentally we have tested and optimized a QuSpin OPM for operation in the frequency range from DC to 1.7 kHz, and found that the performance was only slightly inferior despite the expected decrease due to deviation from the spin-exchange relaxation-free regime.

[en] The basic design and most relevant experimental conditions of a pulsed metastable atomic-beam oven are described. The stainless steel oven is suitable for vaporising metals and salts up to around 1400 K producing intense beams of metastable alkaline-earth atoms when pulsed or continuous wave low voltage discharges are used. Several applications using atomic calcium in its ³P and ¹D electronic state are reported. The beam characterisation and discharge efficiency have been measured by time-of-flight or laser-induced fluorescence techniques. In addition, a method of changing the metastable n³P/n¹D ratio, by raising the oven temperature, is described which looks very promising for the study of electronic selectivity in reactive collision processes. Finally several spectroscopic applications for atomic and molecular beam determinations are reported. (author)

[en] We describe the space-resolved soft x-ray (1-33nm) instrumentation developed for the Tore Supra tokamak. By using a programmable hydraulic jack to move the spectrometer, several spatial profiles (up to ten) of many impurity lines are obtained during a single plasma discharge, with a time resolution which can be as short as 600 ms. (author)

[en] A simple one-dimensional position-sensitive detector using delay-line encoding to achieve deadtimes below 100 ns for groups of particles is presented. The design allows for trade-off between positional resolution, deadtime and the number of particles per group. The prototype performance ( 1mm resolution, 100 ns deadtime for up to 4 particles) has been tested in applications to dissociative single and double photoionisation of small molecules. The forward/backward electron ejection asymmetry in NO photoionisation to NO⁺ (c³Π) and an axial/transverse asymmetry on O₂ photoionisation are confirmed. (author)

[en] Atomic force microscopy (AFM) experiments were performed to study the behaviour of AFM cantilevers under an external magnetic field B and temperature field produced by a coil with an iron core. Four cantilever types were studied. Forces were measured for different B values and at various coil-to-cantilever separation distances. The results were analysed on the basis of a phenomenological model. This model contains the contribution of two terms, one monopole-monopole interaction at short distance, and one apparent paramagnetic interaction in ∇B² at large distance, which represents the temperature effects. We observe a good agreement between the model and the experimental data. (authors)

[en] To realize the quantitative damage detection of a rotor, firstly an impedance analytic model is built. Then the change of bending stiffness is introduced as the damage index. Given the circular boundary condition of a rotor, annular elements are used as the analyzed objects and spectral element method is used. The electro-mechanical (E/M) coupled impedance expression of an undamaged rotor is derived with the application of a low-cost impedance test circuit. A Taylor expansion method is used to obtain the approximate E/M coupled impedance expression for the damaged rotor. After obtaining the difference between the undamaged and damaged rotor impedance, a rotor damage detection algorithm is proposed. In this paper, a preset damage configuration is used for the numerical simulation and experiment validation. The detection results have shown that the quantitative damage detection algorithm based on spectral element method and piezoelectric impedance proposed in this paper can identify the location and the severity of the damaged rotor accurately. (paper)

[en] Due to the disadvantages of the current smart Geogrid for geotechnical use only being able measure strain and evaluate load location, a smart Geogrid embedded with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors has been developed. Also, a deformation reconstruction technique has been investigated, which enables the newly designed smart Geogrid to evaluate the deformation fields of the key areas in geotechnical structures. After the fabricating process of the FBG embedded smart Geogrid was briefly introduced, a curvature information based deformation reconstruction method for the smart Geogrid was detailed. In order to optimize the distribution of the FBG nodes in the smart Geogrid, the finite element (FE) simulation data of the three possible causes of deformation were extracted, and the reconstruction results of the four distributions were compared. The results indicated that equidistantly distributed FBG sensors at the ribs of the smart Geogrid were the optimal distribution for the newly designed smart Geogrid. In addition, a modified deformation reconstruction technique was proposed to reduce reconstruction errors due to the stress concentration on the junctions of the smart Geogrid. The modified method, which employs FBG measured strains for calculating the deformation of the ribs and weighted strains to compute the coordinates of the two junctions, was validated by FE simulations. The simulation results illustrated that the modified method can improve the deformation reconstruction accuracy for both a Geogrid embedded with one fiber optic cable into one warp thread and a Geogrid embedded with multiple fiber optic cables in different warp threads. For the purpose of verifying the feasibility of the deformation measurements for the designed smart Geogrid using the proposed reconstruction techniques, experiments for the smart Geogrid embedded with one fiber optic cable were conducted in constant temperature environments. The curvatures of the smart Geogrid were calibrated prior to the deformation experiments in order to remove the errors induced by the strain measurement. The experimental results demonstrated that the reconstruction technique for the newly designed smart Geogrid was capable of evaluating the deformation field, and the modified reconstruction technique was able to effectively improve the reconstruction accuracy in order to fulfill the requirements of geotechnical usages. The newly developed smart Geogrid with deformation reconstruction techniques can be a promising smart Geosynthetic for the reinforcement as well as the monitoring of geotechnical engineering-related applications. (paper)

[en] In this paper, a novel probability-based classification model is proposed for real-time fault detection of power transformers. First, the transformer vibration principle is introduced, and two effective feature extraction techniques are presented. Next, the details of the classification model based on support vector machine (SVM) are shown. The model also includes a binary decision tree (BDT) which divides transformers into different classes according to health state. The trained model produces posterior probabilities of membership to each predefined class for a tested vibration sample. During the experiments, the vibrations of transformers under different conditions are acquired, and the corresponding feature vectors are used to train the SVM classifiers. The effectiveness of this model is illustrated experimentally on typical in-service transformers. The consistency between the results of the proposed model and the actual condition of the test transformers indicates that the model can be used as a reliable method for transformer fault detection. (paper)

[en] As one of the Geometrical Product Specifications that are widely applied in industrial manufacturing and measurement, sphericity error can synthetically scale a 3D structure and reflects the machining quality of a spherical workpiece. Following increasing demands in the high motion performance of spherical parts, sphericity error is becoming an indispensable component in the evaluation of form error. However, the evaluation of sphericity error is still considered to be a complex mathematical issue, and the related research studies on the development of available models are lacking. In this paper, an intersecting chord method is first proposed to solve the minimum circumscribed sphere and maximum inscribed sphere evaluations of sphericity error. This new modelling method leverages chord relationships to replace the characteristic points, thereby significantly reducing the computational complexity and improving the computational efficiency. Using the intersecting chords to generate a virtual centre, the reference sphere in two concentric spheres is simplified as a space intersecting structure. The position of the virtual centre on the space intersecting structure is determined by characteristic chords, which may reduce the deviation between the virtual centre and the centre of the reference sphere. In addition,two experiments are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method with real datasets from the Cartesian coordinates. The results indicate that the estimated errors are in perfect agreement with those of the published methods. Meanwhile, the computational efficiency is improved. For the evaluation of the sphericity error, the use of high performance computing is a remarkable change. (paper)